Blogotional

It started when I read this post by the iMonk over at Boars Head Tavern - he rants off of the latest concerning Prayer of Jabez' entreprenuer Bruce Wilkinson. Spencer has this very quotable:

We don't worship Jesus in evangelicalism. We worship celebrities and the success fetish they foster. We don't want to go to places like Africa and Appalachia and do small things for years. We want to build a Christian Disneyland in 18 months and produce a video curriculum about it.

I agree there is precisely a lot in Christianity that is headed in the wrong direction he describes, but I was put off by his defining "evangelicalism" this way. I have always thought of myself as an "evangelical," I thought like Presbyterians, or Lutheran, or Catholics, there were some good evangelicals and some bad ones.

Then thanks to GospelDrivenLife (having somehow missed it at Miscellanies) I ran into this article on "Assumed Evangelicalism."

Assumed evangelicalism believes and signs up to the gospel. It certainly does not deny the gospel. But in terms of priorities, focus, and direction, assumed evangelicalism begins to give gradually increasing energy to concerns other than the gospel and key evangelical distinctives, to gradually elevate secondary issues to a primary level, to be increasingly worried about how it is perceived by others and to allow itself to be increasingly influenced both in content and method by the prevailing culture of the day.

It is relatively straightforward to point to individuals, churches, movements and institutions that are clearly either proclaiming the gospel or denying it. However, it is extremely difficult to spot assumed evangelicalism and to evaluate and critique it. The reason that it is so hard to evaluate and critique is precisely because it is assumed evangelicalism. In other words, it acknowledges all the right things. The theology of assumed evangelicalism could well be faultless and, when asked to do so, is probably able to articulate itself in an exemplary way. The danger of assumed evangelicalism is precisely the fact that it has come from somewhere very distinct and is heading to somewhere very distinct but the in-between-ness of it makes it a lot harder to evaluate clearly. The crossing of boundaries is notoriously hard to see until you have arrived on the other side. This means at least two things.

Firstly, it means that attempts to question people, churches, or movements and institutions that are perceived to be sliding into assumed evangelicalism will always risk being labelled judgmental at best and, at worst, the scare-mongering of the 'fundamentalist' fringe. Those raising the questions must be willing to accept that their judgements may be misplaced and unfair. Nevertheless, if assumed evangelicalism is a reality, then it is in all our interests to be willing to discuss, with love and humility, how far its characteristics may be true of us and our institutions.

Secondly, it means that many assessments of assumed evangelicalism will be largely criticisms of potential as opposed to actual. A fundamental worry aroused by assumed evangelicalism is generational - if we continue down this line in this particular way where will the next generation stand on this issue? In many cases (although certainly not all) criticisms may need to be tentative and provisional, to guard against the unnecessary fragmentation of evangelicalism and the drawing of lines before they need to be drawn. Such criticisms may be considered rude, but they show a commitment to the need to draw lines somewhere. We cannot afford to ignore the deceptions of our own hearts and the world in which we live. Both of these can subtly distort and truncate the biblical gospel.

If, then, assumed evangelicalism is a recognisable phase in which an individual, or movement, or church may find itself, what does the phase actually look like? What are its characteristics? We can address the issue positively by asking two questions to determine which of the three stages best describes ourselves and our ministries.

That is a great description of the syndrome that many of us in the Christian blogosphere fight against, and I think giving it a modified name helps to make people less defensive and more willing to talk.

But my bottom line question is this:

What are we fighting for when we are fighting for evangelicalism?

Evangelicalism is a set of ideas and priorities, an understanding, of Christianity designed to influence the church. As far as I can tell, that's all it is. It is not an institution that needs saving -- it's not the church.

The same set of ideas that originally defined evangelicalism are still around today and held by many -- they are what is important, not the label. As people seek to redefine the label, they are robbing it of the power that made it worth anything. Why not let it go?

Evagelicalism was founded as a counter movement to exactly the kinds of problems described in the article when they began to beset the denominations. That may be part of the problem,we started a countermovement instead of doing actual reform. So now the counter movement is taking on the same corruptions it was born to fight. That's acutally kind of inevitable if you think about it. But the counter movement has little worth saving because we still have the ideas that originally defined it.

I think rather than fighting for evanglicalism we should start fighting for what it was started to fight for to begin with -- the church. Heck with the label.